Saturday night in Las Vegas, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Wanderlei Silva will fight for a third time. The majority of fans who order the event on pay-per-view will not have seen their previous fights. They might not even be aware that they are witnessing the third chapter of one of the greatest rivalries in mixed martial arts history.
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| Quinton "Rampage" Jackson looks to create trouble inside the Octogon on Saturday. (UFC.com) |
Things didn't turn out quite like Pride executives thought they would. Jackson threw Sakuraba around Pride's ring, dumping Sakuraba on his head and pounding him with hard punches. Submission master Sakuraba repeatedly went for them, but Jackson powered out and continued the onslaught. Sakuraba eventually secured a submission, but Jackson announced himself as a force in Pride.
Jackson already was well aware of Silva. He had first seen him at UFC 20 in Birmingham, Ala., where Silva scored an impressive knockout win over Tony Petarra. Jackson was impressed.
"I liked his fighting style," Jackson says. "I was a fan of his before I became a fighter."
While Jackson might have liked Silva's fighting style, Silva quickly developed distaste for Jackson's attitude and demeanor. Silva was the Pride middleweight champion, and Jackson emerged as a top challenger. Jackson began talking about wanting to take the title from Silva, which greatly angered the Brazilian.
"I don't like him," Silva frankly asserts. "The first time I saw him in Japan I didn't like him. I didn't like his attitude. He joked at bad moments, and in his interviews he had bad jokes at bad moments. He didn't show respect. It's important to have respect for everyone."
Tempers exploded at Pride 25. Jackson had a No. 1 contender's bout for the middleweight title scheduled against Kevin Randleman. Before the fight, Jackson began talking about wanting to take Silva's title. Jackson says he did this at the behest of Pride executives and quickly regretted the decision.
"Pride told me to say that," Jackson says. "I did what I was told in Pride, but I got stabbed in the back, so I'm never going to do that (stuff) again."
After Jackson defeated Randleman, he was given a microphone and proceeded to challenge Silva for the title. A livid Silva jumped in the ring and shoved Jackson. There was a wild melee, with a shocked Jackson remarking to his trainer, "He's crazy!"
"What Wanderlei did (ticked) me off," Jackson says. "I was ready to fight him then and there. The only thing that was staged was me getting the microphone. They never gave me the microphone. That was the only time. I don't know what they told Wanderlei to do, but I was ready to fight Wanderlei right there."
Jackson would have to wait a few months -- both men were entered in Pride's 2003 Grand Prix tournament. Jackson and Silva advanced to the semifinals, where Silva fought Hidehiko Yoshida and Jackson faced Chuck Liddell. Jackson and Silva won, and went on to fight in the finals. It was a brutal and controversial bout.
Jackson took Silva down early and opened up with effective ground and pound. Jackson stayed active with punches and knees, but the referee stood up the fight. From there, Silva took over and hammered Jackson with a seemingly innumerable number of knees from the clinch. Jackson took unbelievable damage before the referee finally stepped in. He attributes his resilience in part to his chin and in part to his mouthpiece.
"I really wanted to win that fight," Jackson says. "I wanted to be the champion. My head was strong. I had a good chin. And I had a really good mouthpiece. That mouthpiece saved me. It was shock absorbent and he hit me right on the chin."
Silva himself was surprised by how much damage Jackson could take. When asked to explain how Jackson stayed up for so long, Silva doesn't have an answer.
"I don't know," Silva replies. "I've fought with heavyweights. I hit him so hard. I hit him 20 times with my knees and he didn't go down. He's a very, very tough guy."
Following the fight, there was controversy over the quick referee standup. It's a point that bothers Jackson to this day.
"That was my strategy -- to beat the hell out of Chuck and ground-and-pound Wanderlei. I didn't think the organization would do that. Who knows, they probably would have kept standing me up all night."
Silva isn't sympathetic to Jackson's complaint.
"I think they needed to have action," Silva says. "It's a sport, but this is a show, too. You need to give an interesting match for the fans. If you go to the ground and don't have action, the referees need to stop it and go back to the standup. I think the referees did a good job."
Following the loss, Jackson immediately eyed a rematch with Silva to avenge what he labels the worst day of his life. After defeating Ikuhisa Minowa and Ricardo Arona, he got it in the main event of Pride 28.
The rematch would go a lot differently than their first fight, but it would end similarly. The exciting, back-and-forth bout went nearly 15 minutes, and it was widely considered the best fight of the year. In the end, Silva again unloaded on Jackson with knees. This time, Jackson wasn't able to take the punishment. A Silva knee connected perfectly on Jackson's chin, and an unconscious Jackson collapsed through the ring ropes.
The fact that their second bout was so well received by fans brings about different emotions in each man.
"I thought it was the best fight of the year," a proud Silva asserts. "It was a very tough match. We gave a great show for the fans."
Jackson, on the other hand, sees no redemption in how good the fight was or how close he was to defeating Silva.
"I got knocked out for the first time in my life," Jackson notes. "There was nothing positive about that at all. That was a hard time in my life. I can never watch that fight."
For a while, it looked like that would be the final chapter in the rivalry. Another rematch would have been tough to sell in Japan given Silva's decisive wins in each of their previous bouts. But when the UFC brought both Jackson and Silva into the fold, a rematch for the first time in both the Octagon and the United States made sense. The fight was signed for UFC 92, as part of a triple main event alongside Forrest Griffin vs. Rashad Evans and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Frank Mir.
A big question for the third fight is whether Jackson will be looking to stand with Silva. Silva was dominant in the standup in their first two fights, but Jackson has advanced significantly in that area since then. Jackson was known for his slams and ground and pound in Pride, but he has mostly utilized standup in the UFC. Silva acknowledges Jackson's improvement but has few doubts about Jackson's strategy in their third fight.
"He has improved," Silva says. "But he doesn't want to fight in the standup with me. He knows that if he fights in the standup with me he's going to lose. I'm training more on my wrestling and jiu jitsu because I know he wants to take me down. I want to get the knockout for my fans."
Jackson is more guarded in discussing how he will approach the fight. But when asked about his standup then and now, he has a simple response.
"What I had back then I couldn't really call standup," he says.
Both Silva and Jackson have switched up their training camps since they fought last, another factor that could be pivotal. Silva left his longtime home the Chute Boxe Academy and now trains in Las Vegas at Xtreme Couture, regarded as one of the best training camps in the world and particularly renowned for its fight strategy. Silva raves about the experience.
"It's a great place," Silva gushes. "Couture is a very, very good coach. He is a great man. He is an example for the fighters in the Octagon and outside the Octagon. I think he's the best in the world. He has helped me a lot. I will be thankful to him forever."
Jackson, on the other hand, has been on a rockier road. Following an acrimonious split with longtime trainer Colin Oyama, Jackson joined Juanito Ibarra. But that partnership dissolved as well, and Jackson is now training at the Wolfslair fight team in England. While that team doesn't have a reputation for producing scores of world-class fighters, Jackson feels he is in the right place and that it will make a big difference in the fight.
"I've got better training partners and trainers," Jackson says. "You're only as good as the people around you. I've wanted to fight Wanderlei at the right time, and I feel like now is the right time. I feel like I can be one of the best fighters in the world if I train right for the fight. I feel I can beat anyone."
Saturday night, Jackson will have the opportunity to prove he can defeat Silva. Silva, on the other hand, can dispatch his longtime rival once and for all. Silva also has the added motivation of satisfying the American fans who have embraced him more than just about any foreign fighter in UFC history.
"I fight for my fans and they know I give my best," Silva says. "Every time I need to give a good show for them because tickets are so expensive and pay-per-view is so expensive. The fans know which fighters want to give a show. I love my fans and fight for my fans. It's so incredible that I'm from Brazil but when I fight American fighters the crowd is much more for me over the American fighters. They know I'm going to put on a show."
Todd Martin has covered mixed martial arts for the Los Angeles Times, Wrestling Observer, SI.com and CBSSports.com. He can be reached at toddmartin4l@aol.com.
